Tag Archives: loss

Vigil

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I have been here before

No more desire to eat
No more desire to drink
Comforted by the warmth of bed

My beloved husband was dying and
I did not spend every minute with him
Too busy trying to keep it all rolling
Calling friends to come see him
Doing laundry for gods sake

While children and friends sat with him

Though in the night I was there beside him
The hospital bed pushed next to ours
So I could touch him
And hear the change in his breathing…

There is that

So now I stay in this room 
On a bright May day
With my dying cat
My sweet boy during the pandemic

No more desire to eat
No more desire to drink
Comforted by the warmth of bed


Kristin Moyer
May 27, 2023

Let There Be Light

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It is December, with the winter solstice approaching, the season of light!

But I am having trouble producing light here on my hilltop. 

First it was the four walk lights edging the pavers leading from my car park. All four lights were working, and then suddenly one evening, they were not. 

I went out to the electrical corner the next morning. The transformer was plugged in and its face was glowing, meaning it was getting power. I tried turning the switch to off and then on again, and the walk lights came on. I set the timer to six hours, and that evening the walk lights worked. 

But two nights ago, the walk lights were off again. I tried the same rescue operation, and last night the walk lights were shining again. For how long is anyone’s guess. 

Inside the house the Christmas lights are frustrating me. The set of wax candles on the mantel has fresh batteries but I can’t get the remote control to turn them on at five pm, for six hours.

I am having the same problem with the battery-powered candles in the windows. They all have fresh batteries, but I can’t get the remote control to work their timers either. Two worked, but not the other ten. 

Yesterday after reading the manufacturers’ instructions online, I learned the secret: you have to turn on all these candles manually at the base first before using the remote to set the timers. I waited until almost five pm, and then followed the instructions. And it worked. The house was lovely with flickering light. I will write a note of instruction and put it in the storage boxes, so that next Christmas I will not be frustrated. I am almost 80, and I forget things.

Yesterday I also brought the Fraser fir inside, set it in the stand by myself, and put on the strands of small clear lights. First I plugged in each strand to be sure the whole strand of 100 was working. But when I got the first strand carefully draped around the top most section of the tree, the second 50 lights were dark, so I had to take the lights off, muttering and climbing on and off the step ladder, and replace it with a new strand. 

Finally I had all the lights on the tree, and I sat on the couch to admire my work.

Bill had always put the lights on the tree, and Bill had set up most of the window candles—his favorite Christmas decoration and one that he was not in a hurry to take down after Christmas. Sometimes the window candles were up until Easter; they were the old plug-in kind.

This is my thirteenth Christmas without Bill, and it is hard even after this passage of time to make the light shine without him.  

I sit in the dark living room, the lights shining on the tree, the candles flickering on the mantel and in the windows, signaling to the dark sky and to the stardust that I am here. 

December 12, 2022

Red Kite in a Blue Sky

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March 19, 2018

I am lying in the Lafuma recliner that my older brother gave us years ago, my head pointed toward the floor and my feet pointed toward the ceiling.  I have put this outdoor recliner into service in my living room, because a week ago today I had total knee replacement of my left knee and this recliner does the best job of elevating my leg and minimizing the swelling. I have an ice pack wrapped around the knee and am covered from toes to neck by a soft red blanket that my friend Tanya gave me. The first time I used this chair for surgical recuperation was in 2004 when I was recovering from foot surgery. Then I had Bill to help me, and a little bell on the side table to ring when I needed him. I need him now.

Total knee replacement is not really an accurate term; it is more an enhancement of what is already there, plus a plastic disc in place of the missing cartilage. I prefer not to think of what the surgeon and his helpers did to my knee, but I know from the operation on my right knee three years ago that ultimately this knee with its titanium parts will be an improvement. Right now the knee hurts. The whole left leg hurts and has turned shades of blue and yellow, with bruises from thigh to ankle bone.

I miss Bill. He was there when I became violently ill with food poisoning at my mother’s apartment. He commandeered a wheelchair from the lobby of the senior high-rise, loaded my helpless self into it, put me into the car, and once home, drove the car onto the lawn and right up to the back door, where he unloaded me and got me into the house and into bed. He probably should have taken me to the hospital, but he got me home.

He was there when our family doctor stitched up the deep triangular cut made by the recalcitrant overloaded wheelbarrow I was trying to get through the pasture gate ahead of the thunderstorm. He was there, letting me hold his hand in a death grip while the foot surgeon removed the stitches that had stayed in a bit too long. He was there for me, all the many times of sickness and hurt.

And I was there for him, as the cancer laid waste to his body.

Now I am alone in our house, and I miss Bill. He was my rock, my anchor. After his death, one of his friends wrote a thoughtful note, making the point of Bill as my rock, though he did not know us well as a couple. I guess he read between the lines of the long letter I wrote every Christmas. He said I was like a kite, and that Bill held the string that kept me on the earth. I did not like that image very much at the time, but I have grown to appreciate it.

I turn my head to look out the large picture window. It is an overcast day but I can see a red kite in a blue sky, with the string held by a brown-haired boy with warm brown eyes. A red kite in a blue sky, tethered by love.

A Love Song, on Mother’s Day

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May 12, 2017

It is Mother’s Day, and instead of thinking of my mother, as I should by popular tradition, I am thinking of you, the father of my children. Perhaps it is because I am sitting in the corner of the couch closest to the picture window, your favorite spot to sit and read. I used to sit opposite you, in the black leather chair with my feet up on the ottoman, and every now and then look up from my book and say something to you, although often I was out at a meeting and you read alone.

Now I sit in your spot on the couch because it is easier to get up from the couch with its higher seat and arms and I am older, and if truth be told, I like this view of the garden better. I have snagged the ottoman, so I can put my feet up, and although I began reading the latest book group selection on my Kindle, I have stopped to listen to the Carolina wren outside the picture window. He is singing away, so big a song for his tiny body, and perched on a branch of the lilac shrub that we tried to kill off because it was so massive when we moved into this house forty years ago, and when the lilac persisted and did not die we let it be.

I look out the window with your eyes, seeing the wren in the lilac shrub, the wren house swaying from the eaves where this little bird is building a new nest. We bought that bird house on a vacation to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. You put up the hook the wren house is hanging from. And when the original cording broke, you strung new cord, and that cord is holding still.

Beyond the window your eyes must have seen the changing light at this time of day, when the sun dips lower in the west, lighting up the spring green leaves of the willow oak that we planted together so many years ago. The willow oak and her sister have so shaded the bed by the picture window that I replaced the struggling plants you would remember. Now ferns, hellebores, native geraniums, and astilbe grow there.

But inside, this living room is not much changed at all. You could sit down in your favorite spot on this couch and pick up from the side table the last book you were reading before you became too ill to read: A Team of Rivals. There are other books stacked on top of it, but I have not found the heart to move it.

There is a new basket for kindling on the raised hearth, and a new hearth rug. There are two new Siamese cats sitting on the rug: Jasmine and your sweet Blueberry have passed away. And there is me, not all that different after almost seven years, but perhaps stronger for this journey, sitting in your favorite spot on the couch, listening to the Carolina wren singing his love song in the lilac shrub.

Memory

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February 18, 2017

Our ship had docked in the harbor of the most beautiful island of our journey through the Aegean Sea.  Symi is tiny and hilly, with white and yellow houses rising up the steep hillside from the blue harbor. I wanted so much to swim in that blue sea, but doing so was unlikely. There seemed to be no beaches. So when our trip leader Alexander asked if anyone wanted to swim, I said yes eagerly. You, of course, did not want to swim, not sharing my passion, but you waited while I rushed back to our cabin to put on a swimsuit and sundress, and to grab a towel. I hurried back to the deck, and we joined another couple to descend the gangplank and thread our way along the narrow sidewalk around the harbor. Small shops formed a wall to our left, with the sea to our right.

Alexander turned a corner, leaving the curve of the harbor, and soon stopped by some benches.  He pointed to the sea. “There you go!” he exclaimed. I was dubious. The harbor was very close by, and I worried about the pollution from the ships. But the other couple had laid down their towels on one of the benches and were descending the steps cut into the stone wall and splashing into the sea. You sat down on another bench. My desire to swim conquered my worries and leaving my towel and sundress next to you, I held onto the cold chain next to the stone steps and carefully reached for each slimy step with my bare feet, taking care not to strike my misshapen second toe against the rocks.

At last I threw myself backwards into the cold sea with a whoop of joy. You smiled and waved at me. Behind you the white houses climbed the hills, and the sun shone in the blue sky.

I think of that moment now, as I descend the steps in this hotel in San Miguel de Allende, where the sun shines in the blue sky and the white and blue and yellow houses climb the hillsides. I remember that afternoon swimming in the Aegean Sea off the island of Symi, and I remember your smile.

“Time Spent with Cats is Never Wasted”

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December 28th, 2013

Yesterday my daughter had to euthanize her beloved cat Roo who had been born of a feral mother in my daughter’s back yard. She rescued the little black kitten and he lived a full and wonderful life in her home with the other resident cats, occasionally catching the reckless mouse. Roo was a beautiful sleek black cat, very suspicious of strangers but loving with his family. He lived for fourteen years before the tumors of oral cancer invaded.  I know the pain of losing a beloved cat, whether to natural death or to the saving grace of the veterinarian’s drugs, and I grieve with my daughter for the loss of her beautiful and loving cat.

So what do we learn from cats, besides the certainty of heartbreak and loss when these small creatures that we love are destined to live much shorter lives?

We learn how to relax and how not to hurry, how to stretch out and luxuriate in the sun, how to be utterly at peace with the world.

We learn how to walk in beauty, every step a lesson in grace.

We learn how to launch ourselves without hesitation into the world in one mighty jump, and how to curl up so that our backs create a circle that echoes the globe.

We learn how to focus, until the molecules of our bodies form an arrow of concentration on one small sparrow.

We learn that the pat of a velvet paw, all claws sheathed on our wrist, and the tiny lick of a raspy tongue on the inside of our elbow can signify a salute from one small nation to another larger one.

And we learn how to give our love and grieve and give our love yet again throughout the longer days of our lives.

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

 

Sudden Sorrow

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After three years, I mostly have my sorrow under control, but sometimes it springs out in the most unlikely places and surprises me. This morning on my way to the garden center, I stopped at McDonalds to grab an egg McMuffin. As I was exiting, I held the door for an older gentleman to enter. “Good morning,” I said to him. He smiled, seeming a bit surprised, but returned my greeting. As I walked to the car, my eyes filled with tears. Such a simple thing, saying “Good morning.”  And I will never say good morning to Bill again, or see him again.